SO WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

That tyrant Sam Goldwyn, the film tycoon, who flourished in a Hollywood age prior to its sexual harassment scandals said this: “It’s difficult to make predictions especially about the future.” Yet we must try because we live in a world of storytelling where ‘narrative-drive’ is all and business leaders regard themselves as born-again Aaron Sorkins.

Recently a friend asked with the urgency of a character in the TV series, ‘Victoria’ when parliament was in the midst of the Corn Law crisis: “Richard. Do you think the government will fall next week?”

I paused and thought … I don’t know and I don’t care because the malevolent hand that’s writing our script has lost its touch. There are too many cliff-hanger dramas, there’s too much noise, just too much …

In a week when the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Defence Secretary tussled, almost coming to blows (more East Enders than West Enders) and in a world where Trump’s finger inches further towards the nuclear button you tell me what’s next?

Predicting the future is difficult? Even for computers it would seem. In Australia the hitherto faultless Umpire Decision Review System in Test Cricket has been seriously questioned by many cricket commentators. Here the question is where a cricket ball would have gone in the next 3 or 4 feet of travel. Even that isn’t that easy.

I see with gloom that the market is awash with new alcohol free products, gin, whisky, beer and cider - Seedlip, Teetotal, St Peters, Kopparbeg and so on. And that’s just for starters. (Happy Christmas everyone.) Cars are beginning to look like Victorian horses - on the verge of redundancy.

So the future is a carless society, free of alcohol and one where smoke of any kind - tobacco, coal or bonfire will be illegal. New political parties will form….and evaporate. Labour will purify itself of what they call “Blairite Zombies” - that is centrists - and become the darling of a reducing but passionate minority. The Tories will implode (again). Europe will disintegrate and we’ll be glad we left. Then it will reintegrate and we’ll be sad we left. The political landscape will just become more of a mess.  That pendulum will swing to and fro increasingly erratically and the fickle finger of fate will stop and point where least expected.

Back to a real storyteller - Aaron Sorkin. In his series “The Newsroom” Jeff Daniels plays a news anchor who can't take the bullshit anymore about America being the greatest country in the world during a panel discussion and tells it like it is - a weakening, contradicting and failing country that’s lost its moral compass.

What’ll happen next is unknowable. So we must go with the flow, be kind, true to our beliefs and values. We shall be in a pickle if all we worry about is money, status and how others see us.
2018 will not be easy. That, at least, seems a safe prediction.

WHAT'S NEXT?

As you know I’m writing a book. This makes me question everything I read and get very tetchy (ask my wife.) In my research I’ve just come across Georg Vielmetter who runs the European leadership and talent practice at Hay consulting. He’s spearheaded their study Leadership 2030 which is the result of a foresight research and analysis program conducted by Hay Group

and Z_Punkt. The research (it says) “pinpointed six megatrends that will create the greatest shifts in the business environment.”

Georg (that’s right, no “e”) and Z_Punkt together raise all the instincts of a Private Eye investigator. (Who’s pulling whose I wonder?) Well  Z_Punkt are based in Cologne and seem quite a weighty bunch whose role in life is  - hold on while I sit down - to “futurise” business.
We all know that “futurising” is best left to J.K. Rowling. Because no one in business or government ever gets it right. Futurising is work for fiction writers. That’s why people who write fiction love the idea of an uncertain future.

So what do Z_Punkt make of it?  (By the way Z_Punkt’s the sound an elastic band makes when pulled back then released snapping painfully across your fingers. So I’ll call them Z_Punkt_ugh! In future)

These are “Megatrends 2030” courtesy of Z_Punkt_ugh! and Hay.

1. Globalization: Asia dominates the global economy, and a new middle class emerges.
2. Environmental crisis: Sustainability moves from CSR initiative to business-critical imperative.
3. Individualism and value pluralism: Freedom of choice erodes loyalty and overhauls employee motivation.
4. Digitization: Work goes mobile, and the boundaries blur between private and professional life.
5. Demographic change: Aging populations intensify the talent war.
6. Technological convergence: Powerful new technologies combine to transform many aspects of everyday life.

I feel like bursting into that song from Annie, the musical:
“The sun'll come out tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow
there'll be sun
Just thinkin' about tomorrow
Clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow till' there's none
When I'm stuck in the day that's grey and lonely
I just stick up my chin and grin and say ohh…”                                                                               repeat …

Because I think I knew all that megatrend stuff, I think the Asia thing, the ageing thing, the green thing, the mobile thing, well I think I knew all that - didn’t you? I don’t think that’s “futurising” anything I think it’s “sun’ll come out tomorrow” stuff.

But it gets worse.

The leader of the future will be “Altrocentric”. No that’s not “Al” is in “Allan” it means focusing on others. The leader of the future will be sweet and kind, give people presents and sing them to sleep. The leader of the future will be useless. Just as the footballer of the future unlike that nasty Suarez with his beastly nippy teeth, will be sportsmanlike, never tackle and will applaud his opponents’ goals.

Me? I’m back to writing and my own brands of centricity: prandiocentricity, risocentricity, bibente-centricity.

That’s lunch, laughter and booze.
Z_Punkt_ugh! to you all.

THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS...

it’s over, let it go

I’m not much into nostalgia. The future always seems to be more exciting than the past about which there is nothing you can do.

However here’s a brief glance at ten events from 2010 that we can learn from before fast forwarding into 2011.

i)    The problems with the Euro - specifically its probable demise. Look at Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain and ask yourself if rapid rushes for growth funded by debt ever made sense.

ii)    No one is immune to demise. Ask the nearly-made-it-to-basket-case-Titans, BP and Toyota.

iii)    Nature has a way of putting things into perspective. I loved that volcanic ash. How else would I have got to see Anglesey and have read the first Stieg Larssen in one sitting as I came back from Ireland by car, boat and train?

iv)    And Haiti. Remember the earthquake. Well hallo….it’s got worse. And no the money we gave didn’t get through. And, yes, it’s off our radar now. Remember this is the age of short memories.

v)    We take water for granted. Unless we live in Belfast where some 60,000 people have had no running water since Christmas. Take nothing for granted.

vi)    The coalition is not a party. It’s a coalition. It’s a model for all of us…working together. Of course it disagrees and stumbles. At least it feels real as opposed to Old Tory and New Labour.

vii)    “Yes you can.” Not necessarily Barack. No one doing a job or with political power will be loved or liked forever or, nowadays, for more than a month or so. Thicken your skin. This is not a popularity contest.

viii)    Suddenly we’ve retained the Ashes, the Ryder Cup, are breeding convincing Olympiads and are still also-rans at football. Maybe FIFA were right.

ix)    Is the mini-celebrity bubble going to burst? Strictly Being Fired and X Factory seem to belong to another age. Like Simon Cowell’s teeth. I don’t think I can bear another conversation about Matt Cardle.

x)    And that one blinding moment of unalloyed joy and simple humanity. The Chilean Miners’ Rescue.

Be humble. Be authentic. Be resolute.  Be prepared. Be frugal. Smell the flowers and be grateful.